Farragut's letter, written from the _Hartford_ above Port Hudson on the 6th of April, was the first communication Banks had received from Farragut, save a brief verbal message brought to him by the Admiral's secretary, Mr. E. C. Gabaudan, on the 10th of April, just before the army set out from Brashear. Mr. Gabaudan had come straight from the Admiral, but without any thing in writing, having floated past Port Hudson by night in a skiff covered with twigs so as to look like a drift log. Farragut's letter gave assurance of the complete control of the Red River and the Atchafalaya by the navy of the Union.
Grant's despatch bore date the 23d of March. It was the first writing received from him. It conveyed the answer to the letter addressed to him by Banks on the 13th of March, and placed in the hands of Farragut just before the _Hartford_ ran the batteries of Port Hudson. Thus on either side began a correspondence clearly intended by both commanders to bring about an effective co-operation between the two armies, aided by the combined fleets of Farragut and Porter. Yet in the end, while the consequences remained unfelt in the Army by the Tennessee, upon the Army of the Gulf the practical effect, after the first period of delay and doubt, was to cause its commander to give up the thought of moving toward Grant and to conform all his movements to the expectation that Grant would send an army corps to Bayou Sara to join in reducing Port Hudson. Thus, quite apart from the confusion and the eventual disappointment, much valuable time was lost while the matter was in suspense; and so was demonstrated once more the impossibility, well established by the history of war, of co-ordinating the operations of two armies widely separated, having different objectives, while an enemy strongly holds the country between them.
When Banks wrote his despatch of the 13th of March, he was at Baton Rouge, about to demonstrate against Port Hudson. When Grant received this despatch he was on the low land opposite Vicksburg, with the rising river between him and his enemy, laboriously seeking a practical pathway to the rear of Vicksburg, and in the meantime greatly troubled to find dry ground for his seventy thousand men to stand on. Grant's first idea, derived from Halleck's despatches, was that Banks should join him before Vicksburg, with the whole available force of the Army of the Gulf. When he learned from Banks that this would be out of the question so long as Port Hudson should continue to be held by the Confederates, Grant took up the same line of thought that had already attracted Banks, and began to meditate a junction by the Atchafalaya, the Red, the Tensas, and the Black rivers. What Grant then needed was not more troops, but standing-room for those he had. Accordingly, he began by preparing to send twenty thousand men to Banks, when the Ohio River steamers he had asked for should come.(1) They never came, yet even after he had embarked upon the campaign, alike sound in conception and splendid in execution, that was to become the corner-stone of his great and solid fame, Grant kept to his purpose.